


Maelstrom

by QueenForADay



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Comic Book Science, Hydra (Marvel), Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Rating May Change, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-05 16:46:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6712945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenForADay/pseuds/QueenForADay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>**CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR SPOILERS*</p><p>She was trained to kill and disappear within seconds. She has a name and a reason, now all she needs is help. People are going to pay for what they've done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Storm is Brewing

_Maelstrom (n.): /ˈmeɪlstrəm/: A situation or state of confused movement or violent turmoil._

 

She can still see them: in their chambers with a bullet hole through each of them. Their eyes were closed, and their mouths upturned in slight smiles. Did they even know what was happening? Probably not. She’s been in that sleep before. Time just ticks by, leaving one with only their mind and memories.

She’s managed to get this far. Wakanda, despite all of the media attention it’s gotten in the past few weeks, offers her enough cover to disappear into its borders. It doesn’t stop her looking over her shoulder though. Every loud noise – a honk of a horn, or an argument between vendors in the market – makes her jump and grab the knife that’s strapped to her thigh, hidden by her jacket. Her teachers would shun her. _Feel nothing, especially not fear_.

They told her a lot of things.

Some stuck in her mind, others didn’t.

The information she’s gotten over the past few days have led her here. _Wakanda – it’s king is who you’re looking for_.

She didn’t understand it when she got it. The king was dead. It was all over the news. With every city in every country she visited, she couldn’t escape that fact. That, and who apparently killed the king.

She remembers when she first saw his face. Even obscured by a low-browed cap and scarf, and through the graininess of a CCTV camera, she still knew it was him.

Why she was here now, in the forests of Wakanda, making her way to the panther’s lair.

How they haven’t already sent an army after her, she doesn’t know. Maybe they have bigger targets to look at. The Avengers had been making a name for themselves for the past four years. Now since the bombing in Vienna, eyes were pointed elsewhere.

Still, she didn’t understand why there weren’t dogs on her trail.

She wondered if Zemo even knew.

 

She had been sneaking in and out of places all of her life.

No one notices her scaling up the side of the mountain. It might be because of the crashing of water from a nearby waterfall that masks her sound. She doesn’t make any anyway. The thick fog that hangs over the mountain hides her as she scales the rock face.

She hauls herself up onto the platform, one that looks out over the forest she’s snuck through for the past week. The tree tops all form one giant canopy, shutting off the light that manages to glow through the fog. She looks down at the forest one last time, breathing in the crisp cold air, before turning to the stone panther that looms over the cliff.

Looking up at it, she palms the handle of her knife: her first knife, a present from an old friend when she had finally learned how to use them.

She stalks forward, mindful that even though her trip here had been silent and uneventful, it could all change in an instant. She’s come too far. She won’t be shot down when she’s so close.

Walking underneath the panther, it looms heavily over her as she stalks inside a dark cavern. She lets her eyes adjust to the fading darkness with every step she takes, but her hand never leaves the handle of her knife.

She looks at everything she passes – silently mapping a route for herself to take if, for some reason, her plan doesn’t work.

Eventually, the cave’s walls are replaced by computer screens and metal beams, and with a few more minutes of carefully stalking through the darkness, she ends up looking out on a lab. There’s a few people wandering around, mostly looking at screens and then to their colleagues. It’s not like the other labs she’s had to break into: white walls, white roof, bright lights that just shine a bit too much. It’s dark in this lab. The only lights come from the screens and overhanging lights that flicker on and off. Drops of water fall onto the ground. The waterfall is near, so this all could be under a river.

She presses herself to one of the darkened lab walls. Looking around, she plans a route for herself.

No one notices her sneak past the technicians, slip past wandering guards that are more interested in what’s happening on the screens than what’s on the lab floor. She kills none of them. If she was still under HYDRA, a trail of bodies would be behind her. The walls would be painted with blood.

Her fingers still itch. It takes everything she has within herself to stop and focus.

The lab eventually leads out into another room. Sectioned off from the rest, she steps back behind a panel.

There are two men in the lab. She slinks back into the shadows, poking her head around. She can only see one, and hear the other’s voice.

“I don’t understand,” the man she can see says. He’s built like a fighter. She runs her eyes over him, looking for any potential weaknesses she can use to her advantage.

Her grip on her knife tightens, and then she hears the second voice more clearly.

“I-I don’t either.”

Something settles in her chest. It’s cold and making her heart beat faster. It’s conflicting with her commander’s voice in her head _MANAGE YOUR EMOTIONS_.

She takes one step out of the shadows.

The dark-skinned man spots her.

Out of the shadows, she can see him more clearly. It’s the panther she’s seen on TV screens and news reports. Her mind locks down into the only thing she knows how to do – fight. Something sounds in the lab – metal against metal – and she realises it’s the man’s claws coming out of the holsters on his gloves. He takes all but three measured steps towards her before the other voice says _wait_.

The other man steps out into view.

Their eyes meet for the first time in God-only-knows-how-long. Something’s different in his. They’re lighter. They’re not burdened by shadows and death.

The grip she has on her knife loosens slightly.

“Eliza,” James breathes.

The other man looks over to the other. “Do you know her?”

Their eyes don’t leave each other’s. She remembers the training the Colonel put them through. When she would bring one the soldiers to their knees, his eyes would always be watching her.

Eliza shuffles on her feet, for the first time in her life, feeling very self-conscious about her body movements. “I need your help,” she says simply.


	2. Winds are Changing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FACECLAIM FOR ELIZA: Aylin Tezel, a beautiful German actress.

“Explain it to me again.”

They’ve left the lab. In a bright living room with glass windows covering most of the wall space, she watches the panther stalk around the room. He has a phone pressed to his ear, occasionally glancing over to the two Soldiers sitting on his couches.

When she looks back at Bucky, he doesn’t look the same. When she left the compound, he looked like the others – dead eyes with a single, neutral expression, obedient, waiting for orders. Now, she didn’t know what to think.

His eyes seem brighter; she notices whenever he dares to look up at her. The corners of his lips are still pulled downwards. He looks different without the Soldier gear on. In a blue plaid shirt with his sleeves rolled up, she frowns slightly at the metal arm.

“I wouldn’t ask this of you if I didn’t think you could,” Eliza tries. She notices how his arms flex – both of them. She notices the way he’s frowning, and staring at the ground but being absent from the moment.

Her eyes flicker over to the panther. T’Challa, she remembers. He was in every news report she’s seen since his father’s death.

He’s still stalking around the living room, talking to someone on the other end of the phone. He’s been on the call since they were led back up out of the lab.

She sees Bucky shift in the corner of her eye.

He clears his throat. “I thought you were dead,” Bucky says lowly. The panther is too enraptured with the phone call to notice what they’re both talking about.

Eliza stares at him levelly. “I thought you were dead too,” she replies just as quietly. She shrugs a shoulder. “Then I saw your face over every news report from here to the States to the Middle East.”

Something flashes in his eyes, but it’s gone as quickly as it appears.

The living room is just too quiet. It’s a lot of things for Eliza. The large windows that look out onto the forest that surround the mountain, they cover the walls. It’s too exposed. It doesn’t stop Eliza’s heart slowly thumping against her ribcage.

“And are you _sure_?”

Eliza looks over to T’Challa again. He’s looking out one of the windows with his hand on his hip. She knows what he’s being told. She already knows, but her word wouldn’t mean anything to him. She _did_ just break into his home to see her friend again.

She hears him sigh. His shoulders sag.

“Alright,” he says tightly, “I’ll tell him.”

Him. Not her.

When T’Challa turns around, Eliza’s eyes go back to Bucky. Her breath is lost slightly when his gaze connects with hers.

“Zemo is gone,” T’Challa says. His phone is gripped tightly in his hands.

Bucky’s eyelids slip shut. “Who did it?”

“No one, apparently,” T’Challa replies, “he just made it out on his own.”

Eliza sits back on the couch. Ever since she’s head those words, something ignited inside of her. Zemo is gone. Zemo killed the Soldiers, and now he’s gone. She had a plan. It was what she was trained to do – get in, make the kill, get out before anyone even notices what’s going on. It wasn’t that her plan can’t happen. She just needs to reshape it.

“I need your help James,” she says lowly.

Bucky rubs his flesh and blood hand over his face. “My name is Bucky,” he corrects her. She notes it. They’ve gone too long without names. _Soldier_. That’s the only name they’ve ever had.

She takes a breath. “Bucky,” she says, “they’re dead.”

There’s a pause between them.

“I know,” is all he says back to her.

She’s not as surprised as she could be. He was probably there. The Captain was probably there too.

“Then you know why I need to find Zemo,” Eliza says.

T’Challa is staring at her. His face is unreadable.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she says to the panther, “and it’s true.”

She turns to Bucky. “I want Zemo dead.”

Bucky looks at her for the first time since leaving the lab. He really _looks_ at her. She’s changed, but then again, he’s changed too. Light has somehow managed to creep back into him.

It hasn’t gone that deep for her. There’s still darkness and coldness lingering in the cracks of her heart. It hurts, most days, when the light tries to get in. How do you change a body that’s been trained not to change? You suffer for it.

 

She stays on the couch while T’Challa and Bucky go to a monitor on the other end of the living room. They place a video call to the Captain. She recognises him immediately. His face was in most, if not all, case files that have ever been handed to Bucky. She sneaked quick glances at them, wondering about the man and why people wanted him dead so badly.

That was a year ago, and she understands it a bit better now.

It’s the reason people have split into two groups, not just the Earth’s Avengers.

It’s why she has begun to hate the blue liquid that was put into her body, joining half of the world in their jeering and mocking.

She knows she’s dangerous. It was what they wanted. It destroyed the girl inside – Elizabeth Meyer – who is now just Eliza, and can barely hold a coherent thought in her head before it turns into something violent.

 _My name is Elizabeth Meyer. I was born to Frederick and Johanna Meyer in Mitte Berlin, 30 January 1920. I lived in a farm house in the countryside_ -

-Then they came.

She keeps her eyes locked on Bucky’s back. Even though he’s not facing her, she knows his expression hasn’t changed. He’s thinking. Whether he’s thinking forwards, and putting together a plan, or backwards onto all the terrible things that have happened to put them there, Eliza doesn’t know.

She pretends not to hear the call on the other side of the living room.

She does, however, look up when the Captain says _I know_.

“What do you mean?” T’Challa asks.

“ _I know he has escaped,”_ the Captain sighs. Looking through the space between Bucky and T’Challa, she can see him. The face that was on all of those files. The face that has been on TV screens with the words _felon_ or _hero_ written under him.

T’Challa’s shoulders tensed. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“He’s already caused too much trouble,” the Captain sighs, “only a few people know: those in the UN, and me.”

Bucky steps away from the screen and paces around. He rubs his hand over his face.

“What do you want us to do?” he asks.

The Captain’s eyes suddenly stare forward, right through the camera, and at Eliza sitting on the couch a few feet away from the screen.

“I want to talk to her,” he says.

Eliza stands up from the couch. Her knife is gone, taken from her as soon as T’Challa realised she was armed. She’s never felt so bare in her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yourqueenforayear.tumblr.com if you would like to drop a suggestion for a Bucky/Reader fic, or anything else your hearts desire. Or cry about Civil War. Maybe a bit of both?
> 
> These first two/three chapters are just setting up the story. As I've said last chapter in the notes, I'll be reining in some material from the comic books (I apologise now). Obviously, I'm not going to be doing EVERYTHING in the comic books, as I've already run into a few problems with regards to plotting and characters. But here's my attempt to combine the two.


	3. Storm Clouds

T’Challa leaves the room, but Bucky stays.

She can feel his eyes on her as she talks to the Captain. He’s nice, she gathers. He’s patient: almost like he’s dealt with her kind before. He has.

“Helmut Zemo,” the Captain says slowly. He’s not looking at the camera, but off into the distance, presumably to a teammate. The news about the Avengers splitting had reached her ears. It spread like a prairie wildfire. Steve’s eyes flicker back to the camera. “Is that who you’re after?”

Eliza nods slowly. Even hearing his name, she can see his face. Like everything else, her memory is enhanced. His face lingers in her mind even as she tries to push it away. She doesn’t need her friends’ murder in her mind. Not now.

Steve bites the inside of his cheek. There’s voices coming through the comm. She knows that there’s other people there, but how many she can’t tell. She tries to listen for one in particular. They’re telling him something, she just can’t make out what.

Suddenly the door to the living room slides open again. Eliza looks over her shoulder and sees T’Challa walk briskly into the room with his phone pressed to his ear.

A deep frown is settled on his face as he marches over to the comm. “When were you going to tell us that Zemo is out of confinement?”

Her blood turns cold in her veins, her heart starts beating a little faster. Deep in her core, something heavy settles, churning her insides like nothing she’s ever felt before. She knows in the back of her mind that it’s fear – the person she wants dead isn’t where he’s supposed to be. The plan is compromised – no – she shouts in her mind. The plan is changed, she corrects.

Bucky marches over to the screen and stands on the other side of Elise. “Did you know?” he asks slowly.

Steve’s face contorts slightly, but he sighs. “We got the news this morning,” he replies. “It’s a miracle that we did. We’re not exactly the most informed people when it comes to the UN. Especially not after what happened.”

“What happened,” Eliza says, “is that a lunatic was let loose on the world, and you got the blame.”

The room goes silent. The other side of the comm goes silent.

Eliza straightens. “Let me have him,” she says, her voice cracking slightly, “no one would mourn his death.”

T’Challa turns to her. “We’re not letting you kill him-”

“-You would rather have him walk around the world like a free man?” she argues.

“He needs to be locked up,” Steve says. Eliza turns to look at him, fire starting to burn a bit brighter behind her eyes. “The UN have already granted him a trial.”

She wants to laugh. She also wants to scream. “The UN wants to give him a trial? After all that he’s done?”

Bucky is suddenly beside her. “Come with me,” he says lowly. T’Challa continues to argue with the Captain through the comm, ordering more information to be gathered on Zemo’s whereabouts or where he might be going.

Eliza frowns. Bucky’s holding her upper arm. His metal fingers hold onto her arm, and she stares at them. They’re so familiar.

“You don’t need to listen to this,” he persuades her to leave. They walk out on to a long brightly lit corridor. Like the living room, the walls are mostly glass with reinforced steel beams lining them. The view out onto the forest stretches for miles, eventually disspearing with the line of the horizon.

Bucky drops his hold on her, instead shoving his hands into his sweatpant’s pockets. They walk slowly and in silence.

Eliza looks over to him. “I want Zemo dead.”

Bucky nods. “A lot of people do,” he shrugs, “so you’ll have to get in line.”

“Dummkorf.” She mutters under her breath.

It gets a laugh from him. “I’ve missed your insults, even the ones you say in another language thinking I won’t understand them.”

“Funny,” she replies, “I didn’t think you would remember.”

His gaze drops to the floor and it’s silent between them again. She’s hit something. She searches his face for a moment – his jaw tightens. She’s known him long enough to know it’s a reflex he has when something isn’t quite right.

“I remember everything,” he says, and they’re walking again.

 

When they return to the living room, the comm is off and the screen is blank.

T’Challa is on one of the couches, his face buried in his hands.

“Good news?” Eliza tries. The look she gets off him doesn’t faze her, but she does drop the smirk playing at the corner of her lips.

He turns to Bucky. “Zemo has been gone for a week.”

The feeling returns to her stomach. It coils around her insides.

“How did we just find out about this?” Bucky sighs.

“The UN isn’t telling Stark anything,” T’Challa shrugs a shoulder, “so I imagine they won’t be telling Rogers anytime soon.”

Zemo being out in the world still lingers in her mind. What would he be doing now? What is he planning? Is he planning anything at all? His last experiment seemed to go well – people were still torn, both in and outside of the Avengers. She saw the protests on the streets. Some people supported the Accords, while others didn’t.

The world is so fragile.

Eliza sits down on one of the couches and buries her face into her hands. Everything will have to be changed. _Find Bucky_ is the only part of her plan that has seemed to work.

“I want to check it out,” Bucky suddenly says. T’Challa folds his arms and stands in front of him.

“You could still be unstable-”

“-I feel fine-”

“-And a few words later you could be a deadly machine again,” he hisses. T’Challa’s jaw clenches and he looks over to Eliza. “If it happened to you then it happened to her, right?”

“I’m fine,” Eliza answers, slightly muffled through her palms against her mouth. She rubs her hands over her face and looks up to T’Challa. “Years of harsh therapy can do wonders,” she says drily.

“It’ll be fine,” Bucky says. He’s looking over to Eliza too. Their eyes meet again for a brief moment before he sighs. “It’ll be fine, I promise.”

Bucky walks over to the couch and extends his hand for Eliza. The metal fingers remind her briefly of Siberia, but she pushes the thought from her head. She takes his hand as he pulls her up off the couch. “We’re going to find Zemo,” he says over his shoulder to T’Challa.

“You don’t know where he’s gone,” he argues.

Eliza looks between the two men. “He could have gone back to Vienna.”

“We’ll look there then,” Bucky says briskly.

 

T’Challa stands in front of the monitor.

“And you just let him leave?” Steve’s eyes are wide.

He looks over his shoulder to where Bucky and Eliza left. The jet is long gone, but being tracked. It hasn’t left African airspace yet.

“He’s going to Vienna with the woman,” T’Challa answers him, watching the other tracking monitor carefully. They’re going in that direction, and haven’t veered off their path at all. Still, the thought lingers in the back of his mind. Two dangerous assassins are let loose on the world.

Steve slides back from the table he’s at, and reaches off screen to grab something. “I’ll meet them there,” he says. He’s pulling together a pack.  T’Challa rubs his hand over his face. “I’ll keep an eye on him,” Steve assures him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yourqueenforayear.tumblr.com - my tumblr for if any of you would like to request Bucky/Reader drabbles for my other series, or just want to pop by for a chat :3


	4. Rumblings

“Steve’s meeting us in a safe house,” Bucky says lowly. Walking through the crowds of the airport is easier than they both thought it’d be. Ever since the attacks, Europe has clamped down on who gets in and who leaves. Bucky looks slightly different – his hair is a bit shroter, but still long, and his new metal arm is covered by a long-sleeves shirt and gloves.

Eliza doesn’t need to be as inconspicuous. Years of working as a Winter Soldier meant that no one ever saw her face. The only people who actually managed to get a glimpse of her ended up dead. Still she keeps the hood of her jacket up as they leave the airport, and stuffs her hands into her pockets.

She looks over ot Bucky. “Did T’Challa ask him to, or is this of his own free will?”

She doesn’t mean the slight bite behind the question, but it comes out that way anyway.

Bucky shoves his phone back into his pocket. “He says it’s of his own free will.”

T’Challa then. That’s all Eliza really needs to know.

They walk out of the airport without much trouble, their bags slung over their shoulders as the navigate the streets. The city isn’t as populated as she remembered, but then again, the attacks are fresh in her mind. She supposes that if a bomb were to go off in the UN building of Berlin, then she’d get the hell out of dodge too.

Bucky stays close to her. They occasionally bump shoulders or their fingers skim each other’s. He still looks over his shoulder every minute or so.

“The safe house should be at the other end of the city,” he says, still watching the crowd.

Eliza nods. A few people catch her eye too, but none look back. No gazes are lingering on her, and she’s praying to every deity she can think off that it stays that way.

They go through mostly back-streets, keeping away from the city’s centre. If the situation was different, they would be doing this at night, and instead of keeping to the streets, they would be climbing the rooftops above them. But the light is too much and she knows that there’s snipers posted in some of these buildings. She’s already spotted the glint of a periscope in one of them.

When they get to the other side of the city, it’s noticeably quieter than the other parts. They’ve chose to pass a street that leads out onto the UN building, still in ruins with scaffolding and machinery around it. Bucky took her arm and led her away from the street, prompting to go down another one instead.

Steve’s sitting on the steps of a house, a phone in his hand. A blue basketball cap and tinted sunglasses mostly hide his face, but Eliza can spot him easily.

When he sees them, he gives a slight wave. “You just can’t stay away from the action, can you?” he jokes as he stands up and goes to hug Bucky. Eliza watches the embrace and turns to look down the street. It’s empty of people, but at the very end it leads out onto another cobblestone street.

Steve claps a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “T’Challa told me-”

“-I’m fine-”

“-But you understand, right?” Steve says firmly. “I left you in that freezer for a few days, and you come out without any problems whatsoever.”

Eliza turns to look at Bucky, arching an eyebrow at him.

“A freezer?”

“I’ll explain later,” Bucky waves her off.

Steve extends a hand to Eliza and se takes it. “One of Bucky’s old flames,” she introduces herself.

Bucky snorts. “Very funny.”

Steve points to the building behind them. It’s stone, with small slated windows and it’s well hidden from any prying eyes. “This is where we’re going to be for a while. We’ll start looking for Zemo as soon as you’re both ready.”

Eliza’s grip on her bag tightens. “I’ve been ready for a while now, Captain,” she says as she walks towards the house.

Steve folds his arms and stands beside Bucky. “An old flame?” he smiles coyly.

“Shut up-”

“-Why not? She’s pretty-”

Bucky walks away, ignoring the comments Steve’s still making.

 

In a table in the middle of the living area, Steve has files splayed out. As soon as Eliza puts down her bag in a corner of the room, she spies one of the files. Attached to the corner is a phot of Zemo in militant gear. She picks it up and flicks through it. Information she already knows – where he was born, what he’s done, and even the new information about what he did in Vienna.

The floorboards creak as Bucky and Steve walk into the living room. Steve notices the file Eliza has in her hands. “Curtesy of Sam Wilson,” he tells her. The name is lost on her, but she nods.

“What’s Sam doing with all of this information?” Bucky asks.

Steve shrugs a shoulder. “He says he’s keeping a low profile, but if he’s managing to pull this kind of Intel, I have no idea what he’s _actually_ doing.”

Bucky takes a seat on one of the chairs surrounding the table. He picks up a file with a SHIELD insigna on it. “Do I even want to know where you got all of this stuff?”

“Natasha leaked HYDRA files almost a year ago,” Steve explains casually. Eliza looks at him baffled. It’s not like they’re discussing the weather. Steve looks at her. “You’d be amazed to know how much they’ve done in the past few years.”

“This is how Zemo knew about us,” Eliza says, closing the file and looking down at his photo.

“Zemo’s done too much damage to the world already,” Steve says as he sits down beside Bucky. He waves his hand over the collection of files on the table. “If he’s out, who knows what he’ll do.”

“He’ll destroy everything,” Eliza answers. She stares at the Captain before leaning forward and bracing her forearms on the table. “I want him dead.”

Steve sighs. “I know you do, but-”

“-There are no buts about this,” Eliza cuts him off. She looks over to Bucky. “He killed the others. You know that, right? He shot them in their pods.”

Bucky nods stiffly.

Eliza turns to Steve again. “Either he dies, or I’m bringing Europe down with me.”

Steve runs his fingers through his hair and blow out a breath. “The best thing is to bring him in. He needs to get a trial-”

“-A trial,” she laughs bitterly, “you’re going to give a trial to a man who’s managed to split the world into two?”

Bucky leans back in his chair, and folds his arms. He looks out a window.

“Steve’s right,” he says quietly. He ignores the burning glare Eliza gives him, and looks at Steve instead. “We can’t kill him, even though I know how much you want to. If he’s dead, imagine what would happen. Everything that has happened in the last few weeks will only get worse.”

Eliza stands up from the table and throws the file into the middle of the others. “ _Dummkoffen_ ,” she mutters under her breath and storms out of the living room.

Steve gets up from his chair and walks over to the kitchen. “She’s a real charmer,” he says over his shoulder.

“Don’t let her hear you say that,” Bucky tilts his head back and stares at the cracked foundation of the ceiling. “She’ll kill you in your sleep.”

“I trust her not to.”

“That’s a mistake,” Bucky says drily.

“I trust you, don’t I?”

Bucky doesn’t reply. He traces the lines of the cracks foundation with his eyes, trying to think about something else than the inevitable storm that’s hanging over them.

 

When he finds her, she’s sitting on the mattress in one of the bedrooms. Old wallpaper still clings to the walls, and there’s opened cabinets and a small wardrobe to the corner.

Bucky watches her for a minute. She’s cleaning a knife, rubbing a small cloth over the blade and holding it up to the light. It gleams slightly, and she goes back to cleaning it.

“Remember the time Klaus challenged you to a knife-fight,” Bucky says lowly.

Eliza doesn’t stop polishing her blade. There’s a faint smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “I won, if I remember correctly,” she replies just as quietly.

Bucky snorts. “You won because you had coated your knife with poison,” he laughs drily, “he broke out in hives and a fever that lasted almost a month.”

Eliza’s eyes flicker over to where he’s standing. “I still won, though.”

Bucky stands at the door to the bedroom. He leans against the door’s frame, his flesh fingers rubbing against his metal forearm. Eliza watches him. “How are you?” she asks. She motions to the arm.

“Fine,” Bucky replies, looking down at his arm. He flexes his fingers, one at a time. “As long as I keep it covered, it’s fine.”

Eliza bites the inside of her cheek. “You shouldn’t have to keep it covered.”

Bucky shifts his weight off of the bedroom door’s frame and motions to the inside of the room. When she nods, he steps inside. It’s warm, somehow. The heating and other utilities have been cut off. He imagines it’s the sun heating up the newspaper-covered windows.

Eliza shuffles over on the mattress, making room for him to sit down beside her.

“We’ll get Zemo,” Bucky says once they’ve settled into a comfortable silence again. Eliza still fiddles with the knife in her hand, twirling it in her palm and around her fingers. The movement is so fluid and natural now; she can’t help but wonder about how ingrained it is into her mind.

“I know we will,” she mumbles. The house is too quiet, except for the occasional sound of Steve walking around in the living room down the hall. She sighs. “Did you see them?”

He nods firmly.

“Then you know why I have to get him – they were the only ones we had,” Eliza says. Her gaze is cold as she stares off into one corner of the room. “When they would come and train us, we had each other. It’s the same way I have you now.”

Bucky reaches out and takes the knife from Eliza’s hand. He puts it down somewhere on the floor, away from the mattress. “I don’t know how much we’ll be able to do,” he says, “the UN and the world has their eyes on us. I’m surprised they haven’t sent teams out checking on us now.”

“I’m not on your team,” she replies, “they don’t have a name or a face for me.”

“They will,” Bucky says. Eliza shrugs off her leather jacket and tosses it off of the matress and onto the dusty floor. They have sleeping bags, pillows and blankets, and that’s more than she’s ever had when out scouting. She reaches for the ties to her boots, and looks up at Bucky. “You can go now,” she says, pulling away the laces and buckles.

Bucky reaches out and takes her hand in his metal one. Her muscles tense up under his.

“I promise you that we’ll get him,” he says. When her eyes meet his, it’s the same steel coloured ones staring back at her. The familiar ones that she’s missed. She swallows thickly. “When they have Zemo detained, I’ll make sure the power’s cut when you slip in and kill him.”

**Author's Note:**

> This...is going to be sad. 
> 
> I apologise now.
> 
> This story will follow the comic book's story-line, so you know, prepare yourself. 
> 
> If you would like to request any Bucky/Reader or anything MCU related things, hop over to my tumblr! yourqueenforayear.tumblr.com (additionally, if you want to cry with me over Civil War, then you go right ahead (it broke me and I need friends))


End file.
